Where have I been?

I realize I haven't blogged for awhile and some of you may be thinking that I dropped off the face of the earth! But never fear, I'm back (at least for today). The last 3 weeks have been incredibly busy and I'm still not completely caught up. I'll do my best to summarize what we've been doing since my last post.

On June 5, Dan's sister (Sara) and her family came down to Rochester for the weekend. It had been about 2 years since we had seen them (I think) as they moved from Rochester to Washington state. They stayed in a local hotel with a small waterpark. We took the kids over there one morning and they all swam and had a blast.

Soccer season has ended so we now don't have practice 4 nights a week and games on Saturdays. However, last week we had VBS at church so that took up every evening and more as I helped with meal prep on 3 of the nights. One night at VBS the snack was Cool Whip with a maraschino cherry on top (and maybe a few other toppings). Darin managed to snag 6+ cherries before someone noticed him taking all the cherries and stopped him. Afterwards he told me with a giggle and impish grin that he just LOVES cherries.

The weekend of the 13th Dan took the kids down to Rock Valley for my cousin's wedding and to visit his grandfather in the nursing home (I was working). While they were at the wedding, Natalie was running outside and pooped in her panties. When Dan discovered this, Natalie said, "Daddy, I pooped in my panties. But it's okay. I saw Mommy pack another pair." Since it was an evening wedding, the kids didn't get to bed on time and generally were not on their best behavior. Dan was quite relieved to be home but was wishing I didn't have to go back to work.

For the last 2 weeks Ellie and Kara have also had swimming lessons so that has put another dent in our daily productivity. But they've been having fun and the both passed!!! Ellie was worried she wouldn't pass since her goggles broke on Tuesday and she was convinced that she couldn't swim as well without them.

Last week I also did a OAMC session. My freezer was basically empty and it was the longest span I had between work days to get something done. It wasn't the greatest time to do it since we had swimming lessons in the morning and VBS in the evenings. But there weren't really any other options especially since our 2 vacations are coming up soon. So I did what I could when I could and stayed up late a few nights. I did get about 55 meals in the freezer, a few batches of scones, some snack mix and a batch of popsicles. I still need to make some mashed potatoes and another batch of popsicles.

Next week Kara will be spending the week with Dan's parents and Ellie will be going to camp so I'll only have the younger 2 at home. I'm hoping to get some serious school planning done since I really want to have it done before we go to Duluth next month and time seems to be running out. I've been working quite a bit more than I normally do so that has put a serious dent in my productive time but is helping to pay for our vacations. Next week (or the week after) I also need to go pick and freeze a bunch of strawberries. With the cool weather and rain that we've had this spring, they aren't quite ready yet which is fine with me since I'm not ready to do anything about them.

We've mostly given up on school until after our vacations are done and we start a new school year. Ellie is doing math almost every day and both girls are doing plenty of reading. We've done English sporadically and really need to finish that soon.

Last week I also took Ellie to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes tennis block party. It was basically a way to introduce kids through adults to tennis. She and I had a blast. A friend of ours from church was in charge of the event and did a great job. She's put several of them on in other areas but this was the first for Rochester (she's lived here only about 1 1/2 years). Ellie has decided that she'd like to pursue tennis and is willing to give up soccer to do so. However, tennis is much more expensive (if we are going to let her take lessons of some sort) so Dan and I need to find out what the options are and decide what we want to do about it.

Another thing that has happened in the past three weeks is that I went away for a girls weekend with my mom, my sister and my sister-in-law. We stayed at a hotel in Bloomington for free (using dad's hotel rewards points--thanks again dad!). On Friday night we had wine, cheese, crackers and bread while we chatted and laughed. Laurie had done some research on cheese/wine pairings and did an excellent job. Everybody's favorite was the Boursin-mmmmmmmmm. On Saturday we ate breakfast at the hotel. I brought a coffeecake and mom had brought a fruit tray so we munched on that before we went to the Landscape Arboretum which was beautiful. I left my camera at home but you can see pics of our weekend here (it starts with pic 29). After we spent the morning at the Arboretum, we dropped mom off at the hotel and the rest of us had lunch and did a little shopping at the MOA. Then we went back to the hotel and basked in the sun for awhile before we headed over the the Gardens of Salonica (a delicious Greek restaurant in Minneapolis). After supper we went to the Lowry theater and watched Mom's the Word. It was hilarious and we laughed almost the whole time. Sunday morning we met Dad, John and Ezra for breakfast at the Louisiana Cafe. Our waiter was quite funny. When we asked him if the coffee was any good, he replied that it was and he would tell us if it wasn't since he used to work at a coffee shop. He also told us he'd tell us "what sucked" on the menu and told us not to order the biscuits and gravy since you could get them so much cheaper at the grocery store. The food was delicious and the portion sizes huge!! We split a few meals since it would have been impossible for each person to eat a whole serving size. After breakfast we parted ways and I came back home.

On a side note, on my way up to the cities for the girls weekend, there was a brief shower of rain. But afterwards I saw the most beautiful rainbow I've ever seen. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me or I'd have stopped to take a photo. It was a double full half-circle rainbow and the colors were extremely vibrant. On the primary rainbow you could even discern between the blue, indigo and purple. And it was such a stark contrast to the dark sky that was in the background. It really is too bad that I didn't have my camera.

Well, that's about all the news around here. Till next time. . . .